[MUD-Dev] Aetolia

[Dave Kennerly]

Matt Mihaly wrote:
> Raph Koster wrote:

>> Dark Ages was based originally on a Korean game. I'm sure Dave
>> can speak more to this one, but he was discussing its divergence
>> from the original just a few days ago here on this list.

> Ah hah, that sounds like what I'm interested in. Say Dave, maybe
> the whole list would be interested in hearing about how you
> decided to take Dark Ages in a different direction, what drove
> that decision, what kind of audience cross-over you've had, etc?

Dark Ages attracted a mixture of role-players, GoP players.

Summary of divergence features:

  http://www.darkages.com/pics/feature.html 
  http://lod.nexon.co.kr/
  http://www.darkages.com/community/news/main.html

Some history helps explain.  Legend of Darkness began development in
1996 and went commercial in Korea in 1998.

Meanwhile, in the US, Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds became
commercial about 1998/07.  I localized Legend of Darkness in
1998/11-1998/12, renaming it to Dark Ages, since I had that domain
name but didn't have something like "lod.com" It was my opinion that
the market needed a dramatic difference from Nexus The Kingdom of
the Winds to avoid cannabalizing it.  I molded Dark Ages into more
extreme role-playing.  Examples: Rich story events, strong mythic
qualities, literature contests, and mature social features.  The
technology is largely the same.  The client shares most of the
graphics

This certainly isn't the only way a game world can diverge.  In
fact, Legend of Darkness English is beginning to beta test now,
along side Dark Ages, although it's titled "Shadows of Temuair".
Shadows of Temuair is a direct localization with no divergence from
Legend of Darkness.  In my opinion it does not meet the players'
needs as well, and the Shadows of Temuair user counts are currently
very low.

Currently another Mark Mensch directs Dark Ages and Shadows of
Temuair.  He has a strong background in many varieties of
role-playing and gaming, so Dark Ages continues in the same vein.

Also, I diverged Nexus The Kingdom of the Winds from its Korean
counterpart.

  http://www1.nexon.net/kingdom/index.html
  http://www1.nexon.net/kingdom/screen/index.html
  http://baram.nexon.co.kr/

At that time in 1998 I aimed to express ancient Asia.  Examples: A
set of role-playing societies based on the I Ching, quests based on
Korean and other Asian folk tales.  Some fans appreciated this, but
had I known what I do now, I could have streamlined and produced a
better game balance in various features.  Some of my better success
at game balance came later in Dark Ages development (in 2000), which
was also divergent.  Examples: The Heart, The Pentagram, a
feature-rich Arena, a monk monastery with full grade system.

There's many details in the above links, which would make this
e-mail too long.  If you have any questions about details, I'll
reply to them.

Dave Kennerly


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